Mulia wins 10-Mile Road Runners Race

Contributed report

Published
7:15 pm EDT, Monday, September 3, 2012

On Saturday, Sept. 1, the Westport Parks and Recreation Department sponsored the 50th annual Labor Day Weekend 10-Mile Road Race, the culminating race of the 2012 Road Runners program, which started and finished at Staples High School.

For the second straight week, Adam Mulia of Costa Rica took an early lead at about the 1.5-mile mark and gradually pulled away from the rest of the field to easily win the annual 10-Mile Road Runners Race. Mulia ended the race with a lead of about 700 meters as he led 171 runners over a very challenging course with a good time of 58:20. Mulia's winning time, however, was well off the course record of 51:26 set by Dave Peterson of Fairfield in 1981.

Second and third place in Saturday's race were awarded to Tom Harding of Westport, last year's winner, and Daniel Lenox of Bedford, New York, with respective times of 1:02:02 and 1:04:20. For the fifth time this summer, the first woman to finish was Mary Dolan-Zengo of Wilton, who was second in last year's race, in seventh place with the time of 1:06:03. Dolan-Zengo's time was short of the women's course record of 1:04:32 set by Kathleen Horton of Weston in 1986. Second and third places in the women's division were awarded to Milly Wade-West of Shelton in 12th place and Amanda Parrish of Norwalk, a Staples High School assistant cross country coach, in 20th place with respective times of 1:08:22 and 1:12:15. Other Westport-Weston residents who finished in the top 10 were Eric Sydor, sixth in 1:05:35, David Allen, eighth in 1:06:18, and Paul Greenberg, ninth in 1:06:27.

This year's 10 Mile Race marks the conclusion of the 50th successful year of the Westport Road Runners Program. Started 50 years ago by Howard Burling of the Westport Police Department, Chuck Smith of the Staples Athletic Department and Matt Johnson of the Westport YMCA, this series of summer races, the oldest in Connecticut, has grown into one of the premier summer running activities in Connecticut. This year over 627 individual participants from many Connecticut towns, several other states and a few foreign countries competed in this popular summer 10-race series. The next scheduled Road Runners race will be held on Saturday, June 29, 2013, when the 51st annual Road Runners season and the next 50 years of the program will begin.

Complete results of Saturday's 10.0-mile race may be found at the Westport Road Runners Summer Series website located at westportroadrunners.org.